I know I've been a persistent critic of the Music Festival, but it's with reason. So here it goes again:
The measure of the success of the Music Festival isn't whether it was 'a huge hit' as the PLP website declares, or whether the acts were entertaining.
Success is whether the event delivered tourists to the island, which is after all the mandate of the Department of Tourism.
This image from the first night of the music festival, as well as the many empty seats visible in the video footage, suggest that even in a much smaller venue seat sales were weak.
That isn't much of a surprise when you consider that the lineup was a mystery until weeks before the event, which is clearly not conducive to travel planning, hence the plethora of freebies which were circulating in the last couple of weeks.
I must admit to being a little bewildered that after Government hired Rock Newman to promote the event the appearance was that he then outsourced the lineup to "Quincy Jones" and (as yet unknown) "Friends" in a last minute Hail Mary.
The taxpayers of Bermuda deserves an economic impact study of the Bermuda Music Festival, the Love Festival and the PGA Grand Slam, not the subjective declarations of success from the vested political interests and their hired hands.
I worked on the first JazzFest, and believe that an event like this has its place in our calendar, but it is so far off the mark right now that it isn't funny. It needs to be completely reassessed and reworked with a clear mandate and time frame for moving it towards profitability and/or a private sector initiative.
It has become increasing hard for even the most charitable souls to deny that these events, and participation in Bermuda politics in general, are an extension of Dr. Brown's obsession with celebrity, both his own and others.
if you don't believe that, just view the paid images on the Getty Images website of Dr. Brown with the beautiful people, and the press release from the Bermuda Music Festival about the premier of the Michael Jackson movie with Dr. Brown and "the First Lady" as one of the confirmed celebrity appearances.
This really needs to stop. These events are catering to the wrong constituency. It's little more than a taxpayer funded celebrity vehicle for Dr. Brown.
What we need are dispassionate numbers about the economic value of these events to Bermuda. And spin like the 'audience of 80 million" for the PGA tournament isn't it. That's the total subscriber base, not actual ratings.
